Friday, April 30, 2004

False perceptions.The funny thing was that I was certain they had lost. Round about the middle of the game there was a lot of noisy excitement, but towards the end, there was this tense quiet. Well, quiet-ish. It sounded to me, from where I was, like they were taking a beating.

I had been interested to see if Maccabi Tel Aviv would win the game, but not enough to actually watch it. I was tired, so I had gone to bed. I can hear about the game tomorrow, I thought.

But going to bed on the night of a big game does not necessarily mean sleep. I think I could have slept better had I snuggled up next to a reluctant Bish, in front of the TV. The commotion coming in through the bedroom window from apartments all around was something that could have wakened the dead. Men become very vocal when watching sports.

The whole country has been obsessing about the Euroleague Basketball Final Four, for weeks now. Bish has been very excited about it. He’s been an avid supporter of Maccabi Tel Aviv since childhood, as was his father before him. I even mentioned the Final Four myself here when the pressure was on to have it moved away from Tel Aviv, during the general silliness that followed the Ahmed Yassin killing.

So while I was in this not-quite-awake-but-definitely-not-asleep/not-watching-the-game-but-not-managing-to-avoid-it state, secure in my belief that the game was lost, I started having those worrying late night thoughts that make it even more difficult to get to sleep. If they lost, I hallucinated, there would be few spectators at the final, because of people being bad losers, and because the foreign supporters (A.K.A. “The Chickens”) hadn’t dared come to ever so dangerous Tel Aviv. I was afraid of international embarrassment.

But what do you know? They won. Saturday night’s the final. I’ll be ready with the earplugs.